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"And you thought good Italian boys stay at home because they love mamma? Not according to two economists who today announced to a baffled world that it's really to do with the "endogeneity of parental income" or, more crudely, parental bribery.Whether or not it's more to do with money and power than a supply of good pasta, the economic effects of "mammismo" in Italy are striking.

Eight out of 10 Italian men aged 18 to 30 live with their parents compared to one in five in the UK and one in four in the US, note Marco Manacorda, of Queen Mary, University of London, and Enrico Moretti, of the University of California, Berkeley." By Donald MacLeod, Guardian Unlimited Link to Article (last visited 2-12-06 NVS)